Question Marks
by amberpire
Summary: She is impossible. Completely improbable. Absolutely and totally absurd. And I'm kissing her like she's the only thing that makes sense. ;Tori/Cat;
1. Chapter 1

_This fic takes place the night of Prom Wrecker. I own nothing._

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><p><strong>- Question Marks -<strong>

"Oh, Tori, I got your seat all wet."

I glance away from the windshield to find Cat pouting at me, her lower lip thrust out to the point of devouring the upper. She's twisted backward, eying the black seat with a severe frown and eyebrows tugged down like arrows. Her hair is matted, ruby strands stuck in swirls to her cheeks and neck and the pink of her dress has darkened with the rain. I smile reassuringly, reaching across the seat to pat her damp knee.

"It's fine, Cat. No big deal." I twist back for a moment, watching the road for a moment before turning around. "How are you doing back there, Tug?"

The dark-haired boy grins, raising a single thumb. "I'm all good. Thanks for the ride. It just isn't my night, man - first the hat dies, and my suit catches on fire, and then my tire goes flat. Jeez."

"No problem." I turn back, guiding us through the streets. I'm still so giddy, electricity buzzing in my veins. So the prome didn't go exactly according to plan, but things rarely do, right? Especially when I'm involved, and super especially if Jade is involved. Even with her immature sabotaging, the dance turned out pretty fun. I can't muffle the smug smile on my face, leaning on one hand with my elbow braced on the edge of the car door. Take that, Wicked Witch.

Tug lives way in the town over, but I'm still so hyper from the dance, I knew that I would just go home and stare at the ceiling anyway. Might as well try to tire myself out with some driving. Tug and Cat chat happily as I drive, humming to the music. I listen as he directs me through the streets, pulling into his slanted driveway at last. He gushes about a thousand more thank yous before he waves at us, disappearing into the dark little house.

"So?" Grinning at my red-haired companion, I pull out of his driveway, heading back to the main road that will take us to Hollywood. Cat doesn't answer and I take another look at her, nudging her bare arm with my elbow. "Cat?"

"Hm?" She turns, brown eyes glittering.

"He's cute." I give an indicating nod backward.

"Tug?"

"No, the other guy I drove home."

"There was another guy here?"

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. "Sarcasm, Cat. Yes, Tug. He's really cute, isn't he?"

A faint smile pulls at her lips as she faces away from me, russet eyes lowering to her fumbling hands on her knees. My smile slips away. I don't think I've ever seen Cat serious before. The girl is always so light and breezy, a carefree and playful wind compared to all of the storms that are constantly surrounding her. I duck my head slightly, watching the road while trying to catch her eyes. "Cat?"

"He is cute," she says, but her lips are tugging downward.

I furrow my brow. "But?"

She shrugs, porcelain shoulders shifting. Her dress is strapless and a lot of skin is exposed that I've never really seen before. She's pale, her collarbones thick and prominent as they curve across her chest like creamy valleys. Black lashes fall across her cheeks, wet spider legs, fluttering as she twists toward the window. Lights blur past her.

"But I didn't get a kiss." Lines crease her forehead. "Everyone got a prom -"

"Prome."

"- prome night kiss. Andre got a ton of them, and Robbie had Rex -"

"Robbie was kissing his puppet?"

" - and I even saw the diaper guy kiss Jade." Cat sinks into the seat, her damp hair starting to dry at the roots and raising like loose red threads. "She punched him in the mouth, but still." She sighs, head falling back, and I'm distracted by the slope of her white throat - so much so that I'm nearly in the other lane by the time I jerk my attention back to the road.

"Why didn't you kiss Tug? He seemed more than willing." I navigate through the streets, determined to not get us both into a fatal accident.

I watch her shrug in my peripherals. "I don't know. He isn't - I mean, he's nice, I guess, but I just - I wanted it to be special." She sighs again, her arms hooking across her chest. "Prome night should be special, right? Special kiss, special someone?"

My eyes slide to the corners again, watching her profile. Her lower lip is wedged between the snowy pearls of her teeth, eyes flicked down. I've seen Cat upset before - that's not exactly an oddity for her - but I've never seen her look so ... sad. There's a difference with her. She's easily thrown off of her normal good mood into whatever emotion comes naturally, but for her to be genuinely sad is pretty rare. I've only seen her truly distraught once before, when she caught me kissing Danny. A ping of guilt slices its way through me at the reminder, my eyes returning to the road with a frown of my own. I still haven't forgiven myself for that. It was such a stupid, irresponsible, and downright mean thing to do. I squeeze the steering wheel, my knuckles popping. That's something Jade would do, and I hate thinking for even a second that I could do something even vaguely like her. That whole Danny mess was just that; a mess. A big mess, and hurting Cat turned out to be the worst feeling ever. She's forgiven me since then which, honestly, is beyond me. I'm not sure if I would have been so quick to give someone I trusted a second chance after I stumbled in on them kissing my boyfriend.

But that's the thing about Cat. I glance at her again, her eyes skittering across her hands, palm up and flat on her knees. She's not normal, and I mean that in the kindest way it can be said. I'm ... I'm really glad she's not normal, because if she was, she probably wouldn't be my friend anymore. Normal people hold grudges. Normal people may forgive, but they don't necessarily forget, and while by no means do I think Cat has forgotten a single thing, I do know for sure that she doesn't hold it against me for a moment. I can tell just by the way she looks at me, all lit up and excited, always happy, always sweet, even after everything I did to her. She's not shallow or cruel or unreliable like Jade or cocky and stuck up like Trina. She's an exception to every basic rule about humans, rules that I'm not afraid to admit I fall into. I don't think sometimes. I do stupid things. I hurt my friends, despite my best intentions. But Cat doesn't do that. She never has, not in all of my months of knowing her.

She's different in a severely good way.

"Tori!"

I gasp, my foot reflexively slamming on the brake. I look up just in time to see the red light and a truck streaming by with his horn blaring, loud enough to make my teeth rattle in my jaw. "Christ!" My knuckles rip as I grip the steering wheel, panting as a horde of traffic flies by. I fall back against the seat, my ears ringing with my rapid heart beat, swallowing as the light pales to green. I pull out slowly, my hand resting over my sternum. "I'm so sorry, Cat, I wasn't - that won't happen again, I promise, I'm a great driver!" I dare another look at her to see her face flushed, pupils wide with fear. She, too, is touching her chest, breathing heavy.

"It's okay." Her lips quirk and then she's giggling, her hand pressing to her lips. "That was scary!"

The fact that us nearly dying is apparently humorous to the redhead doesn't really surprise me. The more time I spend with Cat, the more I start to realize that there are parts about her I will probably never understand. Usually that would bug the absolute crap out of me, but with her ... I don't know. I like that Cat is mysterious, that she's shrouded in question marks. It keeps things interesting. As much as I enjoy Andre and Robbie and Beck's company, none of them capture my attention like Cat does. I find myself overly intrigued with her, which might border on slightly creepy, but I try not to dwell on that too long. It's not my fault, anyway. Cat's endlessly fascinating. The things she says, the way she thinks, it's all so new, so foreign. She's a book scrawled in another language and the rest of the world is left to rub their chins and attempt to study what can't be explained. I don't understand why she doesn't have more friends, why everyone else seems so apathetic to her existence. Here is this girl that says the most impossible things with a mind like a labyrinth and everyone plays her off as some ditzy actress.

And that's the thing that troubles me the most - I know Cat can act. That's why she goes to a prestigious art school. She's one of the better actresses in the class; far better than me, that's for sure, and I'd even go so far as to say her talent challenges Jade's. But it makes me wonder when - _if_ - Cat ever stops acting. I like to think I'm a pretty good judge of character, that I know when someone is being real with me. With people like Andre, it's all in the way he smiles, the way he laughs, and even Robbie, though he tends to hide behind Rex, bleeds through when he's being awkward. But Cat ... it's different with her, just like everything is.

The rest of the drive is done in relative silence with the occasional babble Cat so often exudes and, thankfully, there are no more near death experiences. I pull into Cat's driveway with a mental sigh of relief. It's not that I don't like being around Cat because trust me, I do, a lot more than I should, I'm sure, but it's also extremely exhausting trying to decipher her all the time.

"Thanks for the ride, Tor." She smiles brightly as I throw the car into park, the engine idling quietly as she reaches for her purse under the seat. Her hand rests on the door handle, my lips splitting to wish her a good night before she freezes, eyes shifting over the dark windows of her house. I pause, watching as she twists back toward me, her brows knitting together. "Did you get a kiss tonight?"

I blink slowly before chuckling, shaking my head. "Unfortunately not. I didn't even have a date, remember?"

Cat gasps, her hands flattening over her mouth. She leans toward me so fast I almost miss the action by blinking, dark eyes batting up at me. "Did you even get a slow dance?" She seems completely torn by the mere idea that I went the whole night without a slow dance, let alone a kiss.

I laugh again, reaching out to rest a hand on her shoulder. "It's fine, Cat. I was busy the whole night making sure everything went according to plan, which was completely wasted effort, since it never does go according to plan." I give her another reassuring smile and a wink. "Don't worry about it. Trust me, I'm not going to cry myself to sleep tonight."

She pouts again, that same hurt puppy look swallowing her eyes. "But prom -"

"Prome."

"- but prome night should be special for everybody. Everybody should get a kiss, at least." Her eyes flicker down, her hands unrolling again. I follow her gaze, letting my eyes settle on the stitches that curve along her pale palms. "I wanted a special kiss," she mumbles, the words whispered in the small space between us and lost, bubbling out like fizz on top of soda. I watch the plump, pink flesh of her lower lip pout and I watch her black-pit pupils trace shapes on empty, flexing hands, and what if she's right? What if prome night should be special for everybody? For her?

Her cheek is warm as my palm brushes against it, the spider legs of her eyelashes batting against her cheeks before raising, bringing with it two wide pools of chocolate, locking into my own. She's so close, I can smell the strawberries of her lipgloss, the density of her perfume, but above all of that, she smells like the Hollywood rain, sweet and refreshing as I breathe her in.

And I don't know what I'm doing, but I know that Cat deserves a special night, a special prome, and my thoughts don't stay in place long enough for me to conclude that she deserves a special kiss, too, scattering like ripples in a pond. I just know that her eyes grow heavy and her breath is hot before I snuff it out with my lips, her mouth impossibly soft as it molds against mine. My breath stills in my chest, every wire in my brain whipping wildly with heart-slamming shocks and arching behind my closed eyes, blue streams of lights tattooing the insides of my lids. A soft sound is swallowed in Cat's throat, so very ... cat-like, a kitten's mew, and it's that soft vibration of her throat that my hand is suddenly sliding down on that makes my eyes slam open with enough force to make me yank back, the car door digging into my spine. I pant like the car had turned into a vacuum, all of the air sucked out the moment I kissed Cat and -

Oh. Oh, God. I kissed Cat.

She's blinking at me, lips parted and swollen from mine working against them, cheeks nearly the same color as her hair. A hand slowly drifts to her mouth, the pads of her fingertips resting on her lower lip. I swallow hard as she twitches a smile at me, eyes ducking down before flying back up again.

"Thanks, Tori."

My mouth falls open but nothing comes out, just a startled and shaky exhale. How do I even - what - why - My thoughts refuse to arrange themselves in a coherent order, instead focusing on her profile as she adjusts her dress across her thighs and snaps her purse shut, finally climbing out of the car. The cool night wind sweeps in after her, her legs folding out as she stands and spins on her heel to tilt down, catching my eyes again.

"Prome night was definitely special!" She giggles, bell-like and carefree as she shuts the door, twiddling her fingers at me. My hand seems to raise of its own accord, slowly returning the gesture as she disappears into the house, a line of orange light following her.

I don't exactly remember backing away from her house, but it must have been quick because I'm swinging onto my street before I know it, the moon high above my house, the damp smell of drenched streets swimming up my nose as I crawl out. And as much as I don't want to think about what just happened, or what I think just happened, or the way my heart is hammering unmercifully against my ribs, I can't deny the way she smelled thick of stormy weather, or how she tasted like the rain.

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><p><strong>AN**: _You know, my prom was quite smashing. It was indoors and there was no live band or a man in a diaper, but I did have a pretty girl dance with me and I got to kiss her goodnight. So. There._

_Reviews would be marvelous. _


	2. Chapter 2

"Tori, you look like crap."

I lift my soggy head, narrowing my eyes across the table at my sister. She's her usual cheerful self, face glowing brightly as she twirls a spoon along the rim of her cereal bowl. Her lips are split in a wide smile, white blocks of teeth beaming, as if she had just paid me some great tribute simply by being in the same kitchen as me. I glare at her, trying to make my eyes as angry as possible, but my lack of sleep for the past two days has done very little in the way of making any expression I make the least bit convincing.

It's not that she's lying, I just hate that she has to point it out – and so cheerfully, too, with that photogenic smile of hers. I sigh into my oatmeal, frowning at the mushy flakes while I prop my chin into the open palm of my hand. Since Saturday night, I've maybe slept a total of four or five hours, and not consecutively. Every time I close my eyes and try to slip into that once peaceful dreamland, I'm assaulted with a thousand reminders, a million sensations that hurtle me straight back to consciousness – her blotted, black eyelashes fluttering like wet butterfly wings against the high arcs of her cheekbones, the smell of her perfume (something fruity, like peaches and oranges all mixed) drowned in the rain, the sound of her breath catching just before I, before I – and the way her lips felt soft and smooth when I kissed –

A loud clatter of metal against glass erupts as I drop my spoon into my bowl, fingers threading into my hair. I groan, my eyes screwing shut like that will muffle out the memory so thick and vibrant projected on my eyelids like a movie on loop.

"What's the matter with you? Hungover?" Trina's teeth click against her spoon. Milk seeps into the line between her lips before she swallows, the sculptured curves of her eyebrows jerking over her nose. "That's not very classy, Tori."

"Trina. I was here all night. _You_ were here all night."

She gives a shrug. "So? How do I know you're not a closet alcoholic?"

The word 'closet' makes my stomach lurch. I shove my bowl across the table and stand, clawing my hand through my hair again like I'm trying to wring the fog of fatigue out of my skull. Upstairs, I scrub my teeth with vigor, attempting to avoid my reflection. Trina was right. I really do look like crap. Dark crescents are smudged under my eyes like bruises, my skin lacking its usual tan glow. I look washed out, almost sickly, and as I attempt to bring my eyes back to life with streaks of mascara, I meet my gaze in the mirror with a blink of shock.

I just look so _tired_.

My fingers entwine as I bow over the sink, resting my forehead on the hump of my thumb knuckles. This is stupid. Not sleeping, having no appetite – you'd think I had gone off and killed someone. I groan into the cup of my hands. It was just a kiss. A silly, late-night kiss. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't make me gay or bisexual or curious or anything. Girls kiss girls all the time, right?

I lift my head, hesitantly meeting my own eyes again. It's like looking straight on into the gaze of a stranger, someone afraid of themselves, and I realize I am. I'm terrified.

Because girls might kiss other girls all the time, but they don't always like it.

And I did.

I shake my head, burying it into my palms again. Cat's called me about ten times since Prome. She wanted to hang out yesterday – her bubbly voicemail was as cheerful and innocent as ever as she suggested a movie and a smoothie, but I didn't bother to call her back. I couldn't. Even hearing her voice ring through the phone was enough to make me gasp, paralyzed – I remembered with painful detail the soft choking of her barely muffled cry in the passenger seat of my car as she said she wanted a special Prome night.

Swallowing, I lift my head with a deep, long breath. I hold it as I march out of the bathroom and down the stairs, releasing it only when my feet sink into the carpet of my living room. Trina's frowning at her reflection in the door's side windows, her nose pulled up at a hardly gorgeous angle with the tip of her finger.

"…What are you doing?"

Trina doesn't even move. "Checking for bats in the cave. God forbid one come dangling out for a peek when I'm talking to some sweet thing this afternoon." Apparently satisfied, she steps back, grinning as she twirls toward me. "Let's go!"

My stomach rolls again as I follow her out the door, eying my parked car like it's some friend that betrayed me. Trina lost her driving privileges not too long ago after she hit her third dog. This past one did happen to live, but my parents are just about done being threatened with lawsuits. That, and having a bad driver for a daughter isn't exactly good reputation for our dad, the police officer. Personally, I wouldn't trust Trina behind the handles of a Big Wheel on grass, but I wonder for a minute if I should stay home and let her drive herself. The idea is more than tempting, especially as I shoot a glance over my shoulder. My house promises a day of comfort and solitude and, most importantly, a Cat-less day.

"Hello? Chauffer?"

I frown, my keys clinking as they roll over my knuckles. "I feel like crap."

"Matches your appearance." She leans against the hood of my car with an annoyed expression. "Drop me off, then. Mom and Dad will murder me if they see me driving your car and death is not in my repertoire."

I chew my lip for a minute. I'm sure the conflict is more than visible on my face, but Trina's blissfully ignorant to anything that doesn't directly involve her in some way. The only thing she notices that concerns me is what I look like because she's forced to walk in with me at school and share the Vega name. I decide as I climb into the car that I'm going to save her the embarrassment of being associated with me today because 1) I really do look like crap and 2) I don't think I can handle seeing her yet.

I drop into the driver's side of my car, my breath catching in my throat. It's like the memory was preserved here, locked in a time capsule and with the lingering smell of damp seats and my lavender car freshener it's all thrown at me once again – her cheek smooth and warm under my trembling fingertips and the gap between her lips and the heaviness of my eyes and the way she _tasted_ –

"Tori, you _drunk_, drive."

I flick my eyes at Trina's profile, watching her thick jaw muscles smack together as she yacks on her gum. She's nothing like Cat. She's not soft, she's not supple, she's not bubbly, she's beige and brunette and not that passionate scarlet and white skin and –

_Oh my God._

I push the speed limit as I drive, clenching the steering wheel as hard as my knuckles will allow. Again I remind myself just how stupid I'm being, how out of proportion I'm blowing all of this. It was just a kiss. It was just Cat. It meant nothing. Nothing.

My tongue lodges itself between my teeth. But she seemed so happy and my heart felt so light and fluttery and – okay, stop it. A loud breath rustles through my lips as I turn into the parking lot, the school breathing people. I'm all set to just pull up to the front doors and drop her off, but Trina will have none of it, her fist landing squarely into my shoulder.

"Oh no, no, Tori, come on, you'll look like my mom or something. No, go park. Go! Before someone sees!" Her hands fly like shields over her head.

I roll my eyes, twisting the steering wheel and gliding toward the back of the parking lot. And I almost think it's a flag or a kite or something in my peripheral, a flash of red in the wind, and my foot seems to work of its own accord, slamming hard on the brake. The car screeches, Trina slapping the dashboard with both hands.

"What the hell, Tori!"

But I'm staring past her, through the window and at the delicate slope of Cat's back, her purple tank-top frayed along the waistband of her shorts and I never noticed before what great legs she has or what a pretty shade of red her hair is or how fascinating the lines of muscle over her winged shoulders are and –

"Drive!"

I hit the gas, simultaneously sucking in a hard breath as I swing into the nearest parking space. Luckily, no one seemed to be staring too much; in fact, the only one making any kind of noise was Trina, who as going on and on about how I nearly killed her or something.

"Shut up," I mutter, grabbing my purse and hurling myself out of the car.

Trina pokes above the top, glaring at me, hair wild and twisting like a lion's mane. "I thought you were going home, you loon."

"Changed my mind." I hook my purse over my shoulder and break into a jog, abandoning Trina at the car. Cat's back is still to me, a slight bounce in her step as she makes her way toward the school. A pull is tugging me toward her, like some invisible string connects my sternum to her vertebrae, and I follow it on a burst of courage until my feet fall into step with her. My bare shoulder meets hers and the flame of her hot skin startles me for a moment, the tip of my flat catching on the blacktop. I nearly fall, a gasp squeaking out of me, but then Cat's turning to brace herself and I fall against her arm, her elbow just above my bellybutton.

Jerking my gaze up, I try to ignore my simmering cheeks as my eyes lock into hers. Her eyes are bright, brimming with delight as they register me. Her fingers are locked on my arms, steadying me, lips blasting into the biggest smile, Broadway lights, like seeing me is the highlight of her year.

"Tori!"

I don't have time to respond. Her arms are locked around me like cages, crushing me to her chest. A breath is literally smashed out of me at the force of the embrace and I'm incredibly aware of her laughter brushing against the cave beneath my ear.

"I tried calling you this weekend! Did my calls not go through?" She yanks back, hands hot on my arms.

My mouth struggles to remember its function as my brow twitches – it's like nothing had happened, like Saturday night was a distant dream. She doesn't seem off at all. She looks rested and well, a rosy bubble floating through life, just like she was before Prome.

Something in me drops. It feels heavy, like a lead ball plunging into my stomach. I stare at her for several long moments, not sure what I expected. I guess I wanted her to be as affected as I was – some part of me wanted to see her sleepless and pent up and confused. But she's not. She's just as easy going as she was before Saturday night, if not more so. Her hands are on my arms without the slightest blip of worry in her eyes, and suddenly my earlier chanting of _it meant nothing_ feels painful, the edges of the words scraping my chest like swallowed razor blades.

And I hope she's as great an actress as everyone says she is, as I've seen her to be, because if this is real, if this is her, the same girl that trembled under my lips in my car -

"I – guess not," I stutter. Cat's arm loops through mine, her elbow clinching around mine.

"Oh, well, that's okay. We can always hang out today after school if you want. I'll buy us smoothies!"

The school is cool and loud as we step inside. I watch Cat from the side, her cheeks soft and round, eyes flicking around the interior with their usual brightness. She doesn't care that we're walking so close, that I'm staring at her, that Saturday night happened at all.

_It meant nothing. _

Nothing happened.

The first bell rings and Cat leaves in flurry of waves and cheerful banter. I watch her go, a thousand questions dying on my lips and sinking like dead bodies to the pits of my toes.

_Nothing._

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><p><strong>AN**: _Sorry this update took so long. I went to visit family where they have no Internet. They're cavemen, I swear._

_Anyway, I'm back, and updates should be more regular now. Reviews would be sweet!_


	3. Chapter 3

The day is painful.

Which makes no sense, really, because this is what I wanted. I wanted things to be normal. I wanted Cat to forget that it ever happened and go on like nothing had changed. I wanted it all to just be a memory I could laugh at a couple of years from now, something Cat and I could maybe joke about, but not something that was real. Just a stupid, silly accident, caused by a sad girl and someone too willing to help.

But it's killing me.

It's stupid. It's so stupid the way I'm watching her through class, at lunch, like I'm trying to find something hidden in her actions, in her words. But nothing is different; she's exactly the same Cat she was before I kissed her. Her jokes are still don't make sense, she still rambles on about something totally unrelated to the topic, and she's still gorgeous. And it's not fair because I feel nothing like the same Tori I was a few nights ago. I feel like something in me got switched on, something I don't know how to operate.

I never noticed how touchy she was. Her fingers brush my wrist at lunch, the sun clinging to her hair and making it so brightly pink it almost hurts my eyes. But I keep staring at her, acutely aware of the bell-like sound of her laughter and the warmth radiating from her fingertips across my flesh. The touch lingers for too long and I wonder if she did this before and I just never noticed, if I could have possibly been that ignorant. Her bare knees knock against mine under the table and I curse whoever invented skirts because her legs look far too good in them. They're pale and long and hairless and my hand pressed against the seat beside me is itching to crawl over and just, _just_ -

I want to be mad at her. I wish I could be so I wouldn't feel like I've done something wrong. I hate thinking of it that way, of that kiss, of that moment trapped in the capsule of my car. It didn't feel wrong at the time and I can't help but wish it had. Then this wouldn't be so complicated. I could brush it off. I could move on. I could stop staring at Cat like she's a meal, for God's sake.

It's absolutely terrifying how quickly things can swerve out of control.

"The hell is _wrong_ with you, Vega?"

All conversation is snuffed out. I blink in surprise, tuning back into reality to find Jade glaring hard at me from across the table. The girl wears far too much make-up, her green eyes ringed in black like a raccoon. She's chewing on something loud and crunchy, throwing her eyebrows up when I simply stare at her in silence.

"Well? Spit it out."

You know something must seem off with me when_ Jade West_ asks what's wrong. She's never been particularly kind to me, so the fact that she's even bothering to notice kind of throws me off. All eyes are trained on me now, except for Cat, who's suddenly very interested in a magazine on her lap. I glance at her, watching her chew the inside of her lip. It's the first time all day she's acted anything other than normal. Cat doesn't usually get nervous.

"Nothing. I'm fine." The smile on my face hurts my cheeks. Singing I've always been good at, but acting - I still need to work on that, and the proof lies in the eyes of my friends as they stare back at me, unconvinced. "Seriously. Nothing's wrong."

"You haven't said a word all day." Jade shoves the plastic throng of her fork between her two front teeth, grimacing as she yanks it out, examining the tip. "Don't get me wrong, it's a gift from the gods having you shut up for once, but I'm curious as to who managed to dampen perky little Vega's day."

"Why?" It's Robbie who speaks up, readjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose.

"So I can congratulate them," Jade replies. I swear, her smile is toxic.

Keeping my smile firmly in place, and trying to ignore the fact that Cat is still staring down at the same page in her magazine, I pluck a piece of pepperoni from my pizza and pop it in my mouth. Once it's swallowed, I put my elbows on the table and lean forward. "I think Jade wants to be friends with me, guys."

Andre and Beck laugh, but Jade's face only grows darker, if that's even possible.

"Look at the love on her face," Andre joins in, pointing at her with another laugh. The bell rings and Andre leaves the table with an exploded packet of mustard in his hair and a disapproving scowl.

I throw my purse over my shoulder and head back inside, but warm fingers on my elbow have me spinning around in surprise. My mouth drops open as Cat peers up at me, brown eyes wide with concern. This is more like the Cat that was in my car; there's something intense about them, deep, like I could reach in and my whole body could get swallowed up. Her hand drifts away, the lack of contact pulling me from my thoughts.

"What's up?" I try to sound cheery, like Tori is supposed to sound like. It comes out flat, though, and I can tell she notices by the way her eyes jerk away momentarily. I sigh, shifting, watching my feet.

"I'm sorry if I messed things up." Cat's voice is soft, weak, and over the thunder of the horde of kids moving past us, I can only barely hear her. Frowning, I shake my head, bending slightly to try and find her eyes. As much as I wish nothing had happened between us at all, I can't stand to think that Cat would blame herself for something I did. It was a stupid mistake, but it's _my_ mistake, not hers.

"You didn't. I -" I cough slightly, readjusting my purse. "I kissed you, remember?"

Her feet shift on the cement. It's like she's afraid to look at me all of the sudden, her eyes dancing everywhere but my face. "But I wanted you too."

Something in me tenses at her words. It didn't match up with what she said in the car. She just said she wanted a prome night kiss. Not that she wanted a kiss from _me_. I was just trying to make her night special. "What?"

"I wanted you too," she repeats, her hands fluttering near her mouth. "I mean, I like you, Tori, but I know you like boys so I knew I would never get a kiss unless I - I didn't mean to lie but I just - I mean, I didn't exactly lie I just didn't tell the whole truth - I wanted a prome kiss and I wanted it to be special but I didn't want it with just anyone, I wanted it with you -"

I hold up a hand. To my surprise, it shuts her up. The bell rings beyond us and it occurs to me that we're now alone, wrapped in the strained silence left behind the once bustling courtyard. It still smells like food and the sun is baking over us, grilling sweat on my forehead that I wipe away with the back of my hand. Or maybe it's not the heat, maybe it's nerves, maybe it's anger, maybe it's fear. Because Cat's the last person someone should be afraid of, but she suddenly has this power, this control - she's changed me, in one night, in just a few seconds with my lips against hers. She's made me different, opened my eyes when I didn't even know they were closed. And that's scary, knowing she's done that to me, that she could do it again.

"You tricked me into kissing you." I try to meet her eyes but she's looking at her feet, shifting under the hot, yellow rays of the sun. I watch her capture a thick strand of red hair and brush it against her lips. "You tricked me."

"I'm sorry!" Only now does she meet my gaze, her eyes wide and - and _scared_, like she's afraid I might hit her or yell. "I just - I like you, I really like you, and I just - I wanted just one kiss, just one, to be sure that it was real."

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel. They don't prepare you for stuff like this in after school specials on TV. There is no handbook for this kind of thing. They don't teach you in health class how to handle with your possibly gay friend having feelings for you. Hell, they don't teach you how to handle questioning yourself. Schools are rigid like that. They just expect you to be normal, to be like everyone else, and up until Saturday night I fit right into that normal mold. I dated boys. I liked what everyone else liked. I didn't give even a second glance at anyone that wasn't in the set guidelines that have been put up for me to like.

If I hadn't kissed Cat, if she hadn't convinced me to do it, I would have never even considered a life - or choices - that were outside of the norm.

"Was it real?" I watch surprise flicker in her eyes, her head hesitantly lifting. "Liking me, I mean."

A smile trembles at the corner of her mouth. She gives a slow nod, her fingers twisting in front of her. "Yeah. It's real."

I take a deep breath that stutters somewhere along the way because I end up coughing into my fist. "Well, I, uh." I cough again and take another deep breath, but the words aren't coming to me. I'm usually so good at solving problems, at figuring things out from a rational angle, but this is new. This is different. This is Cat, and she's not something I understand completely. I'm not sure anyone does, even herself.

"You don't have to like me back, Tori. I just, you know, I just wanted one kiss. That's all." She's smiling at me, and I wonder how long she's been locking this up, how long it's been buried just beneath the surface and how I could have possibly not noticed. Even now, the way she's looking up at me, like I'm something to admire, like she's so blissfully happy to be beside me despite the circumstances - it's confusing and I don't get it. I don't know what she sees in me. I'm nothing particularly unique. I'm nothing like her. She's wild and eccentric, she says what she wants and doesn't care what other people think about her, she's talented and sweet and probably the most genuine person I know, and she's beautiful and -

Woah.

My hand touches my forehead. "Okay." It's all I say. It's all I can think of to say. Maybe now that it's all sorted out, we can just pretend everything's normal now. She's not expecting me to like her back, she's not expecting us to be together or fall in love or anything. She just wanted a kiss. And she's been such a good friend to me that it's the least I can do. I can't hold it against her, she's far too innocent. Besides, she seems satisfied enough, and I shouldn't be stressing out over something like this. It's fine. It's done. We can all move on now. "Are we still on for smoothies?"

Cat's face lights up like the fourth of July. "Absolutely!" With a loud bubble of giggles, she races me toward the school doors, and I try to ignore the drum solo in my chest.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** _Sorry this took so long. I'm all ... having a life and stuff. It's weird._

_And I apologize for the July 4th reference. I live in America. I couldn't help myself._

_Anyway, reviews would be swell if you could spare the time. _


	4. Chapter 4

Trina catches a ride home with some of her friends (believe it or not, she has a few of them, and they're almost as insufferable as she is), so it's just Cat and I in my car as I pull out of the school parking lot. She's chipper as usual, talking at speed that really shouldn't be humanly possible. My eyes are on the road, my ears are on her, but my mind is somewhere else entirely - I can't help but remember the last time Cat and I were in my car together, the damp smell of rain thick in the air, and her pouting, glistening lips as she melted against me. A shiver makes my spine quake and I squeeze the steering wheel, determined to control myself. It's over and done with. We're moving on. I'm not into girls. That's that.

As much as my mind is set on that, though, my eyes apparently disagree, because they occasionally drift from the striped street to linger on Cat's bare legs, pale and soft as they bounce at the heels on the floor of my car. The tendon - or ligament, whatever, biology was never my strong point - that curves along the underside of her knee can be seeing flexing beneath her skin, a vibrating chord, like a guitar string. And it's weird, absolutely bizarre the sudden desire I have to reach over and stroke it, like I'm curious what kind of music note would come out of her if I did.

I blatantly ignore the extremely homosexual thoughts that are racing through my head as I pull into the Smoothie King, relieved to finally get out of this confined space with her. Cat has either not noticed that I'm not paying attention or is choosing it ignore it, blabbering away as she all but skips to the glass door, stamped with the yellow crown logo wrapped around a pair of pink smoothes. Cat yanks the door open so I can slip in before her. I give her a smile that's half apologetic because I honestly have no idea what she's talking about, stepping into the cool air conditioning of the small, Japanese-themed shop.

Cat flutters to the counter, bending at the waist to address the short, elderly woman at the cash register. Because of the position, Cat's black skirt lifts just barely in the back. I know I shouldn't have even noticed it, let alone stare, but I can see where her thighs meet and the long, white slopes of her crossed legs is making my mouth water. Giving my head a sharp shake, I tear my eyes from Cat and to the menu, staring at the words without reading them. This is absolutely ridiculous, I scowl to myself, digging into my purse and marching up to the cashier with a less than pleasant smile on my face. Cat takes notice of this, her rambling falling quiet as I feel her eyes studying me from the side. It's not her I'm mad at, really, it's me and the way my brain won't slow down for five minutes, how it's not obeying me when I tell it to shut up and act normal. The least someone should be able to do is control themselves, and when you lose that, you feel like you're losing your grip on everything.

"Are you okay?"

My gaze must be a bit harsher than I intended, because Cat takes the tiniest step back when I look at her. I immediately soften on instinct - frightening Cat is a lot like scaring a, well, a kitten, and a certain guilt plagues me that is usually reserved for small, abandoned animals in the road. I give her a genuine smile, reaching out to touch her arm. She looks at my hand and back at me, like the contact is something she doesn't really believe. "I'm fine." I hand the cashier my money, even though I have no recollection of what I ordered. "Just feeling a little pressured with that science project we have to do."

Cat's hesitance snaps away. "Oh, the one with the slideshow we have to put together, and the 3-D model we have to make? And the essay?"

My shoulders hunch with each terrible aspect of the project she lists off. "Yes. That one." It honestly is bugging the crap out of me - I have lines to study and a skit with Andre to practice and I somehow have to fit this huge science project in on top of it. But, mostly, it's her that's making me feel so pressured. And weird. And not like myself. I click my nails on the counter as the Smoothie King employees bustle about behind the counter. A lot of kids from school hit this place before going home, and a group of them are starting to file through the doors. I turn my back to them and lean on my elbow, trying to be a good friend and actually listen to Cat for once, tuning back into her words.

"...could work on it together! We could have little study nights and my mom could make us all kinds of goodies and during breaks we could watch funny cats on Youtube and -"

"Cat."

The redhead falters, waiting for me to continue, but our smoothies are slid across the counter. Cat claps her hands together, cupping them around the cool, pink drink and sucking the straw greedily between her lips. Mine looks like some berry concoction, but I don't really taste it as she leads me to a two-person table by a window facing the parking lot. My empty car's headlights peer at us like round, curious eyes. I twist away from it and look to Cat again, about to speak before I'm thoroughly distracted by the rather ... erotic gestures she's making with her straw. She pulls the straw from the frozen fruit and holds the tip with her finger, keeping the smoothie within in place. She bends her neck back, red hair dripping down the pale incline of her shoulders, bright and solid against the white of her top. My lips part as I watch her lower the straw into the depths of her mouth, pink, wet lips wrapping tightly around the small, thin piece of plastic. Her finger releases. I watch the dark shadow of the smoothie fall into her mouth, the straw slowly pulled from her lips and placed back into the plastic container of her drink. A hard breath rushes out of me, rocky and almost painful, and I blink several times to get the image out of my corneas.

"It'd be fun though, don't you think? And then we would get it done twice as fast because we'd be able to help each other!"

I swallow. It's even more frustrating knowing that Cat is so blissfully ignorant of the whole thing - she's painfully unobservant and for once I wish I was, too, so I could live my life not realizing things like undertones and hidden meanings. She doesn't even notice that she's started a storm within me, the winds tearing apart my thoughts like roofs on houses. I'm Tornado Alley and Cat's Dorothy just going on about her silly dog.

"I don't think that would be a good idea, Cat."

She had been just a few inches away from slipping her mouth around the top of her straw again, but to my relief she draws back, black brows furrowing in the center. "Why not?"

I twirl my smoothie in a slow circle. I don't know how to word this in a way Cat will understand. She's easily upset and takes things the wrong way more often than not, and there really is no way to say this without coming off like a witch. It's not that I don't want to spend time with her - in fact, that's the problem. I do. I do want to spend time with her. I want to have talks with her in my car and laugh with her like I did at Prome and watch the rain fall out of my bedroom window. But I shouldn't, and I know I shouldn't, and I'm ... I'm terrified of the way she makes me feel. All my life I've been absolutely certain of who I am, or at least who I thought I was. By no means did I ever consider myself 'average', but I was still in the spectrum of normal. I have my quirks, but none of them are ghastly. I'm not ashamed of any of them. But this, this ... thing with Cat, that's growing roots and trying to sprout inside of the garden of my chest, it's scary. It's scary because I don't understand it and it doesn't fit anything else I've thought about myself before. It's new and strange and foreign and the only safe way to think about it is as a weed, something that's polluting my insides and is only going to make me worse as a person. Cat is a nice girl, a good friend, and she's been far more forgiving since we met than I really deserve, and I don't want to destroy that by making her think this is more than it should be. It shouldn't be any more than us being friends, because that's normal, that's safe, two girls being platonic with each other. They don't kiss. They don't check out their legs or watch them slurp at a smoothie with a watering mouth. Spending more time with Cat - in a bedroom, with goodies and funny cats online- is like putting a recovering alcoholic in a liquor store.

The thought makes me frown for a moment. What is she, an addiction? My eyes crawl back to hers as if on command and I realize that, yeah, one kiss got me hooked, and it terrifies me down to my bones.

"I just -" I frown, lowering my eyes to the purple contents of my smoothie. "I want to be friends, Cat. Just ... just friends, and I don't want to ... you know, make you feel uncomfortable with me, and spend time together that would make you ... I don't know, I don't want to hurt your feelings ..."

"Tori."

The whine in her voice scares me, my eyes jerking up to meet hers. She's leaning back in her seat, hands in her lap, and her lower lip is actually quivering, gleaming under the lights of the shop.

"I won't make you do anything you don't want to," she says softly, sniffling as she rolls her knuckle under her eye. A tear disappears down her finger. "I'm sorry I messed things up, but I do want to be friends, okay? I can't, I don't want to lose you at all."

"Cat..." I reach across the table instinctively, unfolding my hand. Hers puddles into it, warm and soft as I squeeze it tightly with my fingers. "Don't worry about it, okay? I'm still your friend. I will always be your friend. I'm not going to leave you, okay?"

She looks at our clasped hands and I wonder how it feels on her end, to hold my hand like this and not have it mean what she wants to. I ignore the painful thud of my heart when she meets my eyes again, her lips slowly parting to whisper, "Promise?"

I give an automatic nod. "I promise."

And she smiles, bright and cheery as she squeezes my hand, gesturing to my smoothie with a nod of her head. "Drink it before it gets warm, Tori!" Giggling, she brings her own smoothie to her lips with her free hand, still holding mine with the other.

Oddly, I don't feel possessed to drag it back across the table, so I don't. I give her a slow grin and suck on my straw, the taste of berries splashing on my tongue. I hold her hand while she talks to me, actually engaging this time, truly listening to her, but inside, the storm is picking up. Roots are deepening.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** _I am SO sorry this update took so long. Having a job and a life and hobbies is hard to juggle._

_Reviews would be lovely!_


	5. Chapter 5

"Teenagers - you give dem an inch, dey swim all over you."

Cat's Jamaican accent is actually pretty impressive. I laugh loudly at her, grabbing two pieces of popcorn and tossing them in her direction. She giggles from the other end of the couch, knees tucked to her chest. She changed out of her skirt when she got home (both to my relief and frustration) into a pair of baggy pajama pants that are covered in turtles in various swimming positions. She said the oceanic quality of the clothing made her really crave _The Little Mermaid,_ and the way she pouted when she asked made it literally impossible for me to say no.

The house is empty and the sound of our laughter reverberates off the hollow hallways and the vastness of her living room. For such an enormous house, there's hardly anyone ever home. Cat's parents work more than they do much of anything else, and her brother just moved out (or went to prison again - I don't honestly remember which). But Cat doesn't seem to mind it, not with me here, at least. She's her usual cheerful self, with bring pink cheeks and glossy eyes sparkling in the direction of her plasma screen TV, watching a princess with the same hair color sing about a world she wants to join.

I watch her for a long time. I've been doing a lot of that, actually, since we left the Smoothie King. The two pieces of popcorn I tossed at her eventually make their way to the barriers of her lips, the fluffy, buttered food first being tested with the tip of a curious, pink tongue before letting it stick and bringing it back into her mouth. I watch the flexing of the muscles in her jaw as she chews, the way her temple shifts with every bite, and then the smooth swallow, and somewhere in the back of my mind I wonder if she tastes like salt and butter.

Ripping my gaze away from her, I focus intently on the screen, but I don't really see anything. Not only can I not trust the way my body seems to react to every little gesture she makes, but I can't trust my mind, either. The longer I look at her, the better she looks, and the more I want to slide across the couch until our thighs are touching. I want to feel her warmth and the brush of her giggling breath. Pressing my lips in a flat line, I dig my hand into the popcorn bowl and shove far too many pieces into my mouth, like the process of chewing will somehow take my mind off of the redhead just a few feet away, but all it does is lodge popcorn kernels into my gums and make me think about how much better they would taste if they had hit Cat's tongue first.

My mind finally syncs back with the movie again. Ariel, green tail twisting madly, is kicking up to the surface after she hears the loud booms of fireworks. I haven't seen this movie since I was probably ten years old, but I can hear Cat whispering the words under her breath. I steal another look at her. She's wide-eyed, amazed, and I wonder how she could possibly be so full of awe about everything. Everything is incredible to her. That kind of wonderment abandoned me a long time ago, after I found out that Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy weren't real. Since, few things have managed to wow me on any significant level, but Cat ... she's still somehow clung to that sense of enchantment, of magic, like everything is special and beautiful and awesome. It's just another question mark drawn on her skin, another inquiry I don't know the answer to.

Ariel's up on the boat now. She's crawled up a side-ladder and is peering at the humans dancing and making music on the deck. Eric is bouncing around with his flute-thing, his dog slobbering at his feet. Cat laughs at the scene, even though she's clearly seen it a hundred times. The mermaid tilts her head, blue eyes wide and glittering at the sight of the man, talking about how beautiful he is to the seagull at her side.

Sliding another piece of popcorn between my teeth, I happen to glance at Cat again. Maybe 'happen to' is too loose of a phrase; I feel pulled to, inclined, and when I twist my head I find she's already looking at me. I blink. Cat's lower lip is clamped between her teeth, brown, doe-like eyes meeting mine for a fleeting moment before they dart back to the TV. She sinks further into the couch.

Heart shattering on my ribcage, I twist back to the television. That look had been so quick, so brief, but so powerful. With the ferocity of a speeding train I felt it slam into me, hurling itself right in my face and not allowing me to ignore it. I don't blink as I watch Eric's ship catch fire and rescue his dog, I don't react at all when he throws himself off of the boat and lands into the unforgiving waves. Ariel panics and swims toward him, grabbing him around the chest and bursting back to the surface, to safety. He would have surely drowned without her, sank right to the bottom of the ocean where the pressure would have crushed him. He would have died.

I feel Cat across the couch. I don't look at her because not only do I already know she's there, but my body is hyperaware of that; every hair rising as if to draw closer to her, my body prickling with goosebumps. I wonder who is the drowning victim here and who is the lifesaving mermaid. Just because she has the impossible red hair doesn't make her Ariel. She could be crumbling under the pressure. I could be the one with the fins.

The film moves on. We don't say a word. Cat stops saying the lines to herself. In fact, I'm the one with the reactions, flinching when Ariel's father destroys her possessions in the cavern, secretly retaining the urge to tell Ariel to run away when Ursula lures her in with the promise of legs. I feel stupid. This is a kids' movie with highly unrealistic interpretations on how love is supposed to work, and I'm all tangled up in it. It's almost like it's real, like this girl really is giving up her voice for a chance to become a part of a world she doesn't understand, to try and be with someone she claims to love. I find myself frowning at the television, attempting to drown out my discomfort with how tied I am to the plot of the movie with anger. I try to convince myself how stupid Ariel is for giving up the life she had before, as a Princess, for God's sake, and a freakin' mermaid - she had everything, and she's going to throw it away for someone she doesn't even understand?

My throat sticks when I try to swallow. I cross my arms tightly over my chest. Ariel washes up on the shore and Eric stumbles upon her, bringing her to his castle. I dare another look at Cat, once again engrossed in the story, but she's turned toward the arm of the couch, tucked into it like she wants to fade away. Frowning, I take a deep breath through my nose. "You okay?" I can't not ask her - her fingers are caged over her mouth and she looks so small, not the Cat I'm used to. I can't help but be worried.

Brown eyes focus on me, blinking rapidly like hummingbird wings before she breaks through with a smile. "_The Little Mermaid_'s on and I'm watching it with you - of course I'm okay!"

But her voice is higher than usual, and tense, a bowstring ready to snap. I continue to frown at her before raising the popcorn bowl off of the middle cushion. "You better come eat some of this before I pig out."

Her arm extends, silently asking for it, but I pull it toward me, keeping it on my side of the couch. "You want it? Come get it."

A grin bursts across her face. Giggling, she crawls across the couch. I hold the popcorn bowl over the arm of the couch behind my head as Cat clambers on top of me, her legs tangled in mine. "Tori, give me the popcorn!"

Throwing my head back, I laugh as I extend the bowl even further out of her reach. Cat grunts, her knees shifting across my stomach to rest on either side of my hips. I ignore the pool of heat in my gut. I ignore the weight of her settling on top of my waist, and I definitely ignore the swell of her breasts as she tries to lean over me, grasping for the bowl. My free hand strikes her in the side, twisting and pinching. I feel her muscles tighten as another bubble of laughter slams out of her. Her torso twists with the tickling, her red hair sweeping across my cheeks like cool, whispering breezes.

"Tori!" She twists again, leaning back, and her fingers lock around my hand and yank it away. Ducking down, her face hovers inches above my own. I feel my smile start to freeze and melt at the same time, because I can smell the butter on her breath from the popcorn. "Two can play at that game."

Before I can blink, the hand not holding mine dives into my stomach. I seize in surprise, my grip on the popcorn bowl going lax altogether as Cat's slender fingers ripple the tickling sensation through me like tsunamis. The bowl clatters as I explode with laughter, squirming beneath her like a beached fish. My shirt bunches under her attacking fingers and soon she's touching my bare skin, her warm fingertips curling into the sensitive flesh and ringing more embarrassing noises out of my throat. Cat's laugh synchronizes with mine. Her hips grind into my own, or maybe mine grind into hers, or both, but a shock slithers its way up my spine and out of my mouth comes this gasp of - of surprise? I want to say it's surprise. I wish it was. But it wasn't.

It's a gasp of pleasure.

And Cat recognizes it.

The tickling stops. Cat's hand lingers on the smooth plane of my stomach, my chest fluctuating wildly beneath her. Her brown eyes are locked with mine, that same child-like awe she had when she was watching the movie rooted deep in the pits of her wide pupils. Beyond us, flickering brightly on her TV, are Eric and Ariel spinning in a rowboat, with fish swimming around them, singing words that I can't decipher because Cat is so close, so very, very close -

This time, Cat kisses me first. It's soft and hesitant and weak in the beginning, the lightest push of her lips against mine. My eyes slam close, my body already lighting up to the familiarity of kissing her. I respond automatically, my lips parting against her in an invitation. She takes it, a sweet, cool tongue meeting mine and bringing with it the faint taste of salt and butter. Someone moans, but I honestly don't know if it's me or her. My hands rest on the curve of her hips and I realize she's constructed entirely of question marks; the arch of her foot, the slope of her caves, the hills of her hips that meet with her breasts and her shoulders and her neck and her jaw - they're all mysteries, scattered in the blueprints of her body, and my hands are the dots beneath them, finalizing their inquiry. And right now, I want to answer them all. I want to graze my hand over each curl of question until I know the answer. I want to solve her, understand her, find the buried treasure.

Cat's fingers swim into my hair. The palms of my hands are brushing hot patches of skin where her shirt and the waistline of her sweatpants don't quite meet, the flesh blazing hot under my touch. I push the shirt up, higher, following the routes and roads of her body like a map. My fingertips tremble over the hidden piano keys of her ribcage and I feel it collapse with a hard exhale, the wind of which shudders against my cheek. The kiss breaks for a moment, the two of us catching our breaths in unison before I lean up on my elbows and she crashes against me again, teeth colliding slightly with mine, but the intense pressure makes it all the more enjoyable.

My body remembers her. My brain, my lips, my heart - they all start to shudder unmercifully, pulsing with her, shaking as her hands ghost down my neck and over my breasts. I breathe in and there it is again, the faint smell of rain, like it hides in our mouths and only comes out when we kiss, and I half expect it to start storming outside. My eyes are closed, but I see red blooming on my eyelids, hands smoothing down her hips and over her thighs. Cat presses forward, hips pushing down and there's that gasp again, that pleasure making itself audible as I arch up into her, the kiss breaking so my head can fall back.

Red, red, red - that's the color of passion, isn't it? Cat's lips press against my jaw, her choppy breath breaking on my neck. She nibbles on my skin, another moan erupting from inside of me, unrestrained, as her hands drag slowly across my stomach.

"C-" I don't know why I try to speak, but she gives a muffled 'shh' into the crook of my neck. I swallow hard, feeling the couch shift as Cat moves one leg from the outside of my hip to between my legs. Gasping, her knee presses so softly into my center, my back pushing off the couch in a low arc. Cat's smiling into my skin, her face moving south to kiss my clothed collarbone. Trembling, she rocks forward, pushing her knee into me again, and her name shatters out of me before I can stop it.

I'm so focused on the waves pushing through me that I don't notice Cat shoving my shirt up. The material bunches over my breasts, my purple bra rising and collapsing in front of her. I blink down at her, watching her chew on her beaming smile as she lowers herself, kissing between my breasts. A sound I didn't know human vocal chords could make rips through my throat, high and loud.

I try to put my thoughts in order. I try to both slow down time and make it go its normal rate. She pops the button on my jeans. Well, there goes that attempt. My eyes roll as a hand slips into my pants, pausing at the elastic of my panties. I push forward, up, to her, because I need this, I need _her_, and for the first time since before she kissed me she looks up and our eyes meet and then it slams into me again, hard and fast, this choking fear that makes it impossible to breathe. It crushes a breath out of me with the weight of a boulder landing on my chest and I'm pushing her away, squirming out from under her. She backs up, landing on the other arm of the couch as I force myself to my shaking knees. I grab my shirt and yank it down, my feet crunching on the spilled popcorn. One hand flies to my forehead, the other gripping the fly of my jeans. Tangling my fingers in my hair, I meet her eyes, panting, scared, and I wonder if I look as choked up as her. There are already tears swimming in her eyes.

I don't say anything. I turn my back to her and march down the hall toward her front door, shoving my feet into my shoes and snatching my purse from a nearby hook. I shrug into the Hollywood Sunset and all but sprint to my car, my hands fumbling with the clasp of my jeans. I'm swearing under my breath but I don't care, I just grind the engine until it growls to life and I pull out of her driveway, slamming down the road like I'm desperate to run away.

But I'm not. I'm desperate to go _back_.

So I run in the other direction.

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: _Like Victorious, I also do not own _The Little Mermaid_. Unfortunately._

_I almost felt bad cockblocking these guys. Almost. But then my insatiable hunger for angst won. The smut will come later. Maybe._

_OR MAYBE THEY'LL ALL DIE IN A HORRIFIC DROWNING ACCIDENT INVOLVING JAMAICAN CRABS AND SEA WITCHES~_

_You better review before I consider it. _


	6. Chapter 6

"Honey, are you sick?"

Yes, Mom. I am sick. I'm the sickest I've ever been. There is an illness plaguing its way through my veins, leaving ugly graffiti on the calcium walls of my bones. It's writing things I don't want to read, don't want to know, and the longer I look away and keep my eyes closed, the worse it gets, the deeper it goes. I can feel its roots winding like snakes around my limbs, sinking its venom as far as it can into my system until I can't ignore it anymore, until I can't pretend. And taking the blankets and throwing them over my head does nothing but create darkness when I open my eyes, and like a lonely movie theater it's all projected on the screen of my comforter, playing over and over, the burning, soft roses that fell down snowy shoulders.

But I don't say any of that. I just grunt from my cocoon and Mom's hand pats my arm from the outside. She says something about calling the school but my eyes are focused on the pocket of sunlight that has managed to squeeze into a gap in the blanket and I'm not listening to her. Exhaustion builds up like concrete in my stomach. I hardly slept all night, and the reminder of that comes swimming back to me when I hear my bedroom door close and I yank the blankets back, searching blearily for the clock. Seven. In the morning. My body sags back to the mattress, unwilling to get up, to even try to move forward, but too scared to go to sleep.

I don't want to dream about her again.

One arm falls across my eyes, the other itching at my stomach through my tank-top. Around midnight, I had drifted into some level of dreamland, but it was all tinted red. I could smell her, what with her fruity perfumes and cotton candy lipgloss, and she was sitting on my lap with her fingers tangled in the depths of my hair. She was laughing. I was laughing. I was holding her waist and kissing her neck and it's making my body light up just at the memory of it all, the hazy frames that are what remain of dreams. Her hand had touched me like it had yesterday, curious and gentle but adventurous. I had woken up with a jolt to find my hand pinched between my knees, like my body was revolting against my mind, and the other way around.

I've never been all that good with conflicts of any sort. Man versus man, man versus nature, man versus self. When it comes to other people, I can be a kind of a push over, and if I even see a dark cloud swimming in the distance, I get all paranoid about there being a tornado and start heading toward the basement. And as for myself, fighting internally, battling my reflection - I didn't know it was something that could really be done, that it actually existed, but it is, and I'm at war, and I don't even know where the line is drawn or what I'm fighting for.

My hand falls across my chest, eyes still screwed shut. I hate this. I hate the way I feel like I'm torn in half - one pulsing where Cat had touched me, and the other aching for the normalcy that used to be. It seems ages ago when I was able to look at Cat like I did anyone else; a friend, someone to laugh with and talk to, a person that registered no higher than anyone else that I knew. Was Prome just a few days ago? Is it only Tuesday for God's sake? How could everything I have ever known have possibly twisted itself inside out like this in such a short amount of time?

My bedroom door slams open, making me jump. I squint through my fog of fatigue to see Trina standing with her hands on her hips, all bright yellows and pinks. Her hair is up, held together by a collection of fake flowers. Her eyebrows are arched, dark eyes flicking over me like she's expecting me to crawl out of bed and dance.

"Uhm, hello? Are you getting up?"

"I'm not going to school today." My voice is thick and growly. I give a quick cough into my fist before lowering it again. "Didn't Mom tell you?"

"Yeah, on her way out to some important meeting, and Dad's already gone. I have no ride."

I grab my comforter and tug it to my chin, falling back against the pillows. "Call one of your friends."

Trina's arms lift and slap against her sides. "Are you kidding me? Like it isn't embarrassing enough that I have to get rides from you in the morning. No way. I am not going to call anyone and beg last minute for a lift to school. I'm Trina Vega, Tori, have you forgotten? I plan things out. I am cool and collected and I do not do things like this." She rushes to the side of the bed, her hands clasped under her chin and her lower lip thrust so far, it devours the upper. "Please, Tori? It's just a few miles, you'll be back home in no time. I promise I'll get a ride home from a friend, okay?"

Groaning, I toss the blankets back. "Fine." A yawn rips through me, the back of my hand raising to catch it. My breath is horrible, my hair feels like a flock of birds tried to nest in it, and I'm sure I look like a supermodel right now - a supermodel who had died and done a bit of decomposing, maybe.

"You're not even going to brush your hair? Do you even have a _bra_ on?"

I glare at her as I grab my purse off of my desk chair. "Do you want to _walk_?"

Trina's hands fly up. "Jeesh, you need a hug."

Still in my pajamas and not bothering with trying to tame my hair, I trail behind Trina with a discontented frown marring my features. Hopefully, I won't see Cat in the parking lot. Hopefully, we'll get in a car accident on the way there and I'll be in a coma for six months. That way, I can claim amnesia and pretend I don't even know a redhead by the name of a pet. After screaming at Trina to put her seatbelt on, I pull out of the driveway and speed toward the school, determined to get there and back before anyone I might know chances a glance at me. Trina sings with the radio as we drive, smearing more than enough lipgloss on. It smells like coconut, nothing like Cat's, and it makes my nose crinkle. In an attempt to block the smell, I toss a mint from the car's console into my mouth, crunching down on the stinging taste of peppermint.

Hollywood Arts looms into view. I swing into the parking lot, sinking a bit in my seat and crooking one arm on the window to block my face. I'm starting to really regret not at least putting my hair into a ponytail when I see Andre and Robbie making their way toward the school doors, parking near the back of the lot. Trina whines about how far I'm making her walk, going on about the height of her heels and how they weren't built to walk across blacktop, but I don't budge. She finally crawls out without the slightest sign of being grateful, the door slamming hard behind her.

So far, so good. I haven't seen even the tiniest flash of red. Feeling for the first time in days like I've actually won something, I turn to check the traffic to my left before turning, and nearly scream. My foot teeters on the gas pedal, the car jerking forward before I can hit the breaks.

Cat's standing there, not a foot away from my window, her hands clawed around the straps of her backpack. I've never seen her in dark colors unless something bright was highlighting it, but today she's in washed out gray - her jeans are old, ratty even, and her shirt is long sleeved and frayed and the color of newspaper. Her lips perk weakly at me on the other side.

Frantic, and far too aware of how horrible I look, I snake my fingernails into my hair and pull it back in a desperate attempt to smooth it down. Mumbling under my breath, I push the button to lower the window. A warm morning wind sneaks in, bringing with it the pineapple scent clinging to Cat. It makes my lungs stutter for breath. I throw the car into park, the engine idling softly.

"Hey." Cat's lips move more than any sound comes out. My eyes hesitate somewhere on her stomach before flicking up.

"Hey."

"Are you coming to school today?" She twists her hands around her straps, voice hopeful, peaked.

I stare at the steering wheel, giving a slow shake of my head. "No. I was just dropping off Trina. I don't feel -" I pause, running my tongue over my teeth before swallowing. "Like myself."

The words hang there for a long time. I can practically hear them grinding into Cat's brain, scarring her, and I wish I could take it back. I wish I could be brave and want her as much as she wants me. But she's full of questions I don't want to answer, things I don't want to consider and think that they might be true. I don't want to believe that I'm anything other than the Tori I've been all my life, and Cat makes me think I could be someone else. Someone entirely different - someone I don't know ... or trust. And it's scary. It's really, really frightening, and my hands are shaking because they remember gliding over the slopes of her hips and feeling the curves that made her up, that made her so mysterious, and I can't want that. I can't want her. It scares me too much.

"Okay." Cat swallows. I look at her again but her eyes are watching her feet. She takes a deep breath. "Tori -"

"Don't." My hands are squeezing the steering wheel like I wish I could choke the life out of something. "Don't, Cat."

"We have to talk about-"

"No. No, we don't."

Cat's hands grab the hump of glass that remains between us, her fingertips beaming white as she leans in. I don't back away. I study her pupils and imagine the curve of a question mark hanging above it.

"You kissed me back, Tori." Her face is stern, voice serious, and for once I don't see that daydreaming haze on her face. It stuns me, unable to form any words. "You want me, too."

My mouth falls open. The graffiti on my bones feels bolder, sharper, like it's not just paint, but the sharp edges of stones cut into me. It's not something I can wash away. It's permanent. It's forever. "Cat, I'm not -"

"Yes you are. You are exactly who you're afraid of." Her lips are trembling. She presses them together, hard, eyes searching mine like she's trying to find any hint that I'm the person she wants me to be - the person I can't be, _won't_ be. Leaning in, her head is all the way through the window now, and I still haven't pulled back, and I don't know if that's because I'm too stubborn to back down or some part of me wants to be close to her again. My eyes flick to her lips and back again, a quick glance that doesn't go unnoticed. Watching me, one hand raises from the window, fingertips bracing beneath my chin. I can feel my heart in my throat, slamming the back of my tongue as she leans forward and kisses me; soft, patient, kind. She's gentle - not demanding, not expecting, just giving me enough invitation to kiss her back, and that's really all the confirmation she needs.

I know I should be pushing her away. I know I should feel repulsed, violated, even angry that she would have the nerve to kiss me where someone can see us. But the sun is warm on my skin and she tastes like cotton candy, like ferris wheels and fireworks. And, finally, I don't feel like my body is playing a vicious tug of war. They've both given up, because there's no point in fighting it when she's this close to me.

A soft sound of separation makes my eyes open again. Cat's smiling at me, pulling out of my car. She doesn't say anything as she walks away. I watch her round the car and start toward the school, shifting her backpack and walking with the strength and pride of a lioness. She stalks into the school with her mane of red hair playing in the wind. She knows she's won this round, that I can't fight the obvious.

I want Cat Valentine.

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><p><strong>AN: **_Who _doesn't_ want Cat Valentine? Am I right?_

_Review if I am._


	7. Chapter 7

Trina is absolutely one hundred percent absorbed with herself, but I think she's starting to notice.

Cat's fingers twist in the spaces between mine. Our hands are hidden behind my back and she stays as close as she can to me as we ascend my stairs. I can feel her breath on the back of my neck, coming out of her in giggling spurts. I glance over my shoulder, finding her brown eyes peeking up at me with that familiar, teasing look embedded in them. She bites a smile at me. My heart sputters and I swear one of these days, it's simply going to give out. It's been a few weeks and I'm still not used to her looking at me like I'm some kind of mystical creature she didn't know existed.

Beyond her, glaring up at us from the foot of the stares is my sister, hands clamped tightly on her hips. I meet her eyes only briefly, yanking them away and quickening my pace up the stairs, all but pulling Cat with me. She laughs loudly, becoming much more brave now that we're out of Trina's sight. The hand not locked in mine runs over the back of my thigh. It makes me jump, turning to give her a warning with my eyes, but she's not intimidated. Cheeks as red as her hair, she simply laughs again and does it again, her chest to my back.

I swallow. "Cat, we're not even in my room yet." I've stopped walking because it's kind of a fruitless effort with her groping me like this. Besides, it feels - well, okay, it feels amazing, because her hands seriously know how to touch me in the most perfect ways.

Her hand slips between my legs. Hard fingertips grind against the denim, something heavy dropping in my gut. A soft sound beats out of me at her persistent stroking, leaning back so my head can fall against her shoulder. Her teeth connect almost immediately with my ear. Another laugh rustles my hair.

"Tori," she giggles, a knuckle slowly working against me. I bite my lip, stifling the string of embarrassing noises threatening to come out of my throat. I thought Cat was a physical being when we were just friends, but now it's been multiplied tenfold; whenever we're alone, she's all over me. It's not always like this - this, like ... sexual stuff. We haven't had sex. Honest. One would probably be convinced otherwise with the way she's making me all hot and bothered right now, but the most clothing we've lost is our shirts. It should probably be mentioned, though, that's it's usually - maybe always - me that stops it from going any further. Cat never says anything, thankfully. She seems just as happy to be curled up next to me with her top off on my bed with the TV on.

But when she throws herself on me like this, with her hand between my legs and my knees turning to pudding and her teeth tickling my ear, it's getting really, really hard to find the strength in me to say no. It's not that I don't want to because, obviously, I do, but it's just ... if I do, then that makes all of this more real. It makes it almost official in a way, and I can't pretend that it's just a phase that's going to fizzle out as quickly as it sprung up. If we ... if I have sex with her, then that kind of seals the deal, doesn't it?

It's stupid. Trust me, I'm very aware of that. It's stupid to be thinking so shallowly when Cat's hand is between my legs and soft moans are slipping past my lips and I'm grinding into her and hot waves are pulsing through me and everything feel wonderful but - my mind is a steel trap and it's sank its teeth into me and it just gnaws its way deeper and deeper every time my sister looks at me or I see Beck and Jade holding hands in the hallway and Cat has to creep around corners and hide in the shadows and it's not fair and it's so stupid -

"O-_Oh_." Cat's hand is moving faster, harder, and if we stay out in this hallway any longer like this, I might lose my common sense and just tackle her here out in the open. Cat has that dangerous effect on me; when we're together, all of these walls just crumble to dust. When I'm with her, I feel like I really _could_ just be all out with her and hold her hand and kiss her in the hallways at school. She is my strength.

But when she's gone -

I shake my head to myself and turn around, my hands curling around the back of her head. Fingers thread into her ruby head hair and crush her mouth to mine with a soft _mmph_ vibrating our lips. I don't want to think about when she's not here. I don't want to think about how weak I am when I'm alone, how I feel like curling up in my closet and locking the door with the key down my throat. I don't want to think about the guilt that coats me like a scaly second skin and how I panic and close my blinds and avoid everyone's eyes because they have to know they must see it on me they must smell her on my clothes see her on my lips -

Walking backwards into my door, I reach back with one hand and twist the doorknob. She laughs as we tumble inside, spinning so my back pushes the door closed again. I wonder if Cat is at all like me when we're apart. I don't see it in her. I only see confidence and smiles and laughter and this bright light shining from beneath her bones somewhere, pulsing with her heartbeat. My fingers find the lock and twist it, Cat smiling against my mouth as she pulls back, brown eyes melting into mine.

"You taste good," she whispers, her lip chewing at the corner of her pineapple flavored lip.

The words drip fire down my spine. "Cat, you're -" I can't think up a word big enough, strong enough, lovely enough. I bring her forward and say to her lips, "impossible," because it's the only thing I can think of that's even close. She is impossible. Completely improbable. Absolutely and totally absurd. And I'm kissing her like she's the only thing that makes sense.

I pull her to my bed. Her hand lingers on my hip as she fall beside me, but she doesn't kiss me again. There's an unspoken rule between us that I make the decisions, that how far we go is entirely up to me. The fact that Cat is an actress bothers me sometimes because I can't tell if things like that upset her or not. You'd think she'd be easy to read, the way she gets emotional all the time and lets everyone know what she's thinking, but now that I know her on a more ... intimate level, I can tell when she's biting back something she wants to say in front of our friends. When she clasps her hands together or licks her lips or plays with her hair instead of talking - it all seemed like innocent, little ol' Cat before, but now all of those gestures are significant.

But there's still a level of her I can't quite get under, parts of her I can't read. There are still questions I haven't answered, mysteries left to solve. So when she puts her hand on my hip and smiles at me, coming off as completely content and sure of herself, of me, of us and whatever this is ... I can't stop myself from asking.

"Are you happy?" My eyes shift between hers. I watch the playfulness that had gathered in her eyes slowly melt away. Her smile shifts into a flat line. The hand on my hip moves to her own, the redhead falling on her back. I don't see Cat serious very often - I much rather prefer her when her mood is kitten-like, soft and purring and ready to pounce. But when she's like this she's more like a determined tiger, using her stripes to camouflage with the tall grass.

"Yes." She's certain when she says it, turning to look at me with a hint of her earlier smile returning. "You make me really happy when we're together like this, Tori."

I touch the inside of elbow. "And when we're not?"

Once more, the smile flits away. Coffee-colored eyes watch my finger circling her skin. "It's lonely," she says, words soft. "I mean, I don't want to jinx anything or make you feel bad because I know you're - I know how this feels." She meets my eyes. "I know you're scared. I was there, too."

I nod slowly. Cat's stronger than me in that regard. She had to deal with these confusing feelings all by herself. She had already told me about the nights she had spent crying in the cocoon of her bedspread, how she wasted every birthday wish on becoming 'normal', how every falling star she saw scar the night sky turned into a desperate prayer to wake up and be like everyone else. She already had to deal with being emotional and unable to control her words, she didn't want to feel the way she did about girls on top of it. But she does and she's dealt with it a lot longer than I have.

The thing is, the idea never occurred to me until I kissed Cat on Prome night. I mean, I always knew that some girls liked girls and that never bothered me, but the notion that I could be one of them had not once crossed my mind. I like boys. I think boys are cute. I've been all dreamy, butterflies and love letters and late night texts with plenty of them. And that alone scares me, that maybe Cat just happened at a time when my hormones were out of wack and one day I'm going to wake up and not be attracted to her like I am now. I don't know if sexuality works like that - I've honestly given it barely any thought at all until recently, and the last thing I want is to think I'm something I'm not.

Or hurt Cat.

"I like you, Cat." I tell her for both her benefit and mine. It's true. I do like Cat. I like Cat the same way I've liked boys in the past - she makes my heart patter nervously against my ribs, my cheeks flare, my knees shake. I'm past denying that it was 'just a kiss' that night after Prome. I know it's more than that, I'm just still trying to figure out what it is, exactly.

I look at her, but her eyes are on the ceiling, one arm draped above her head. "I just ... you know, I just don't know to what extent." The words sound wrong when I say them, but I can't think of any other way of phrasing it. It's going to sound bad no matter what.

Cat's eyes flick away, hovering over my window; it's warm and yellow outside and I can hear the neighbor kids laughing from their yard next door. The actress veil that she wears so well falls away if just for a moment, and I see genuine hurt in her eyes. It stabs me hard in the chest, my hand quickly unwinding to grip hers.

"Yet," I finish, looking down at our hands, her pale flesh contrasting with my dark tan. Light and dark. Yin and yang. I feel strong here, with my hand in hers, and her soft smile peeking at me through the rays of sunlight from my bedroom window. I feel like I could take facing my own questions, the hard ones, the ones that really scare me, because I know Cat would be right there to help me.

She stays for a few hours. It's a school night, so after dinner she drives home after a quick kiss on my porch. She's happy again, beaming and giggly as she waves at me from my driveway. I watch her car disappear around a corner and the moment she's out of sight, it hits me hard and low in my gut.

I'm only strong when she's around. I can only stand when she's holding me up.

Wrapping my arms around my stomach, I turn to head back into the house. Trina's in the living room, slung over the couch with the TV practically screaming at her, but her eyes are on me. Wide, dark eyes watch me as I move toward the stairs and just before I begin to ascend, I spin around, glaring right back at her.

"What?" My tone is sharp, angry, but Trina's expression doesn't change. She just raises her chin at me and turns back to the TV, lifting the remote from the couch beside her.

"You better think of the career you want, Tori," she says, and my body floods with ice.

"What are you talking about?" I don't sound as strong as I wish I did. I'm shaking and scared. We hid it well, didn't we? Cat and I were strictly behind closed doors. _Locked_ doors.

"Nothing." She glances at me again. "Right?"

I can't breathe. I burst up the stairs and throw myself into my room, staring hard at my door like I expect Trina to come barging in here with pictures and video evidence. From her perspective, I guess I get it - this is the way Trina acts sisterly and loving. She acted the same way when I was ten and wanted to get a pixie cut. She scared me by saying that I wouldn't be treated the same and people would look at me differently and I would change and - Christ.

I sit on the edge of my bed. I can still smell Cat in my room, a faint scent that is becoming more and more prominent the more she stays here. My chest feels tight and heavy and I don't want to cry but it slams out of me in waves before I can stop it.

I turn on the radio to drown out the sounds of my panicked sobs, but every station is playing love songs.

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><p><strong>AN:** _When I started writing this, I didn't really have it all planned out. That's probably a bad idea, but sometimes, when you just go with the flow, things turn out all right. I certainly hope you think so._

_College starts on Monday, so after that, updates might be a tad slower. Review for inspiration~_


	8. Chapter 8

Cat's house is wide and empty most of the time. There's a color scheme for each room - the living room is shades of oranges and reds, "like an Arabian sunset", Cat claims, the kitchen is fashioned to look like an old Italian bakery, even though the family is never here to actually cook in it, and all three of the bathrooms have aquatic themes. There are pictures on the walls of a younger, brunette Cat with her brother and parents hung up in almost all of the hollow rooms. They're always in the same pose with the same smiles, arms wrapped around each other in the same way - even their choice of outfits remain constant in most of them. Cat told me they take a family photo every year for their annual Christmas card, but it's really the only time they're ever together as a unit. It's not that they don't love each other. Cat has assured me they certainly do, they just choose to live independently. Her parents are at work a lot of the time and her brother has long since moved out. The Valentine daughter has spent the majority of her free time alone and, until recently, she's preferred it that way.

"Not now, though," she said once, her finger circling my navel. "I prefer to spend time with you."

She had smiled so joyfully that it was all I could do to not crush my face to hers in a kiss. Instead, I remained rigid and gave her a tight smile.

I don't know what part of me is in control anymore. The part that likes Cat, or the part that wants to forget any of this ever happened. Sometimes I can't stop myself and I'm falling onto her couch with her on top of me after school and kissing her until I'm dizzy and sometimes I don't even say goodbye to her after class and head straight home. On those days, Trina glares at me particularly nastily, but she has yet to say anything since that day Cat left my house after dinner. I know she knows that I know she knows - bear with me here, my brain is all kinds of scrambled - but we have yet to directly speak about it. She's her usual stuck-up, selfish self until Cat is in her field of vision, and suddenly she'll turn and stare at me with a pointed expression that I try to ignore. My whole life, I've been pretty good at that, but there's a part of me that agrees with Trina, that thinks what she's non-verbally saying is right.

I shouldn't be with Cat like this. I'm putting my entire career in danger. And yeah, there are successful not straight actors and actresses, but I don't want to be that person. Thinking it kills me, that I'm ashamed of how I feel about her, how I'm attracted to her, how much my body responds to hers when we're together. When I'm not with her, it's easy to think those things, to tell myself that I'm done, that tomorrow is the day I cut things off and move on with my life. When she's not there, I want to be normal. I want to be the Tori I was before Prome night.

But when I'm at her house like I am now, tucked into the same corner of the couch I was the second time we kissed, and she's sitting cross-legged at my side with a notebook in her lap and the eraser end of a pencil wedged between her teeth and her black brows furrowed in adorable concentration, it's hard - impossible, really - for me to picture me living the life I had before her. It was so boring, though I obviously didn't notice then because I had nothing to compare it to. But now, instead of straight, clear sentences, facts and statements, I have questions and mysteries and nonsense. And it's scary how much I enjoy it.

Watching her profile, I set my calculator down in my lap and prop my head up on my palm, elbow on the arm of the couch. A distant, ticking clock is the only indication that time is even passing - being around Cat makes time move much more quickly than it used to. I focus on that ticking, the clicking of a second forming and passing, like a heartbeat.

Cat is cute when she studies. For as airheaded as she can come off to be, Cat has pretty decent marks in every class. Her C in English stresses her out - she claims that she can't help it, that commas just don't find themselves when she writes and it all sounds rambled and rushed. That's just the way Cat's brain works, on hyperspeed, trying to keep up and even go ahead. She can't stand being in one place physically or mentally or any way you can think of. It's one of my favorite things about her. She has colorful thoughts, and before I really got to know her, my world was in black and white and I didn't even notice until she stained it red.

Other than the obvious acting and singing that she's good at, Cat's a great doodler. I haven't seen her draw anything larger than a standard piece of paper, but what she does sketch in her spare time or when she's bored in class is actually impressive. She drew me a cat once - granted it was colored with a purple pencil, but it was still a good-looking cat - that I taped to the inside of my locker. She draws a lot of eyeballs with dramatic eyelashes and pupils so dark, the graphite bleeds through the paper. A thousand pairs of eyes are flattened in the pages of her notebooks. She always feels like she's being watched.

I watch Cat's lips crunch into a smile she's trying hard to muffle before she flicks her chocolate eyes at me, sweet as candy. "You're staring."

"Sorry." I feel good today. I've been with her since yesterday night, determined to dedicate our Saturday to some homework we're both behind on, and that extended exposure has put me in a good mood. I know she can tell because she's more apt to cuddle with me more freely. Sometimes she tiptoes around me until I give her a sign it's okay because there are days that I'm so repulsed by who I'm turning into, I can't bear her even looking at me. Two straight days with her sewn to my side, though, does wonders for my attitude. But I know I have to be home by supper time today, which means walking through the front door and seeing Trina, and being alone all Sunday with my worried thoughts that try to get me to walk up to Cat at school the following morning and shut everything down. I can't count how many nights I've spent biting back my tears and then finding her to morning after and preparing the speech in my head only for it to fall apart as soon as she envelopes me in a hug. With the smell of her, the warmth of her skin, and her petal-soft voice melting on my eardrums, I lose everything.

Cat drops her pencil on the coffee table before flipping her notebook closed. She puts her elbows on it, chin in her hands, eyebrows up. "I think we need a study break."

Her eyes are mischievous and heavy like gravity and something drops in my gut. I lick my lips. "Yeah?"

Cat's gaze drop down my front, trailing over my legs. I'm in shorts and I know she can see the goosebumps rising along the tan flesh by the way she bites her cheek. "Yeah." Her hands clap together and she abruptly stands. "Cookies!"

"Cat Valentine, you are a downright tease."

Cat giggles. She skips out of the living room, her bare feet slapping on the wooden floors as she disappears into the kitchen. I tap my pencil on my notebook before depositing both on the table beside Cat's. It's almost instant, how my smile falls away as soon as she's out of sight. The drug is out of my system and, sober, all of the rational thoughts I've been ignoring hurtle into my brain. Cat and I don't talk about the future. We don't talk about after high school or college or our careers. We don't talk about living together and adopting kittens or moving to a flat by the beach or visiting Europe - but it's terrifying how much I _want_ to talk about those things, how all of those things are only appealing when Cat is in the picture. In fact, the rest of my life only excites me anymore if I see Cat by my side.

My fingertips thread into my hair. I'm going absolutely insane. How can someone change so much in such a short amount of time? How did one kiss, one tiny, small, friendly kiss morph into what it is now?

I hear Cat before I see her. I fix my position and smile up at her. She's holding a platter of cookies, something she insisted on baking herself while I worked on a paper that's due on Monday. She grins at me, white legs folding so she can sit on her knees. I eye her suspiciously as she places the silver plate on my knees.

Framing the circular plate are the cookies - instead of chocolate chips, there are cherry chips, giving the cookies a pink glow. In the center are the words _happy thirty-one days, Tori_ in purple frosting. I blink before looking up at her, my heart dripping from sentiment in my chest.

"It's been thirty-one days exactly since we kissed that day after Prome night." She's grinning. Her knees bend to her chest, her arms wrapping around them. Her long sleeves swallow her hands, her fingers childishly twisting in the dark fabric. "I know, I marked hearts on my calendar." Her cheeks are red, eyes watching her fingers, and she's smiling so hard I'm afraid her facial muscles simply can't handle the intensity.

"Cat ..." I look down at the cookies, the frosting, the words, the little heart dotting the 'i' in my name. My sore face lets me know just how hard I'm smiling, like my lips wish there was more room to spread. I dip my finger into the frosting of the letter 'h' and lean over, dapping it on her nose. She crinkles, giggling and shyly looking up at me. Setting the platter on the coffee table, I crawl onto her lap and lick the frosting off with the tip of my tongue. I watch her pupils blow open, feeling her body rise up to mine in a wave-like motion. "Cat ..." I try again, this swell of words building in my lungs, but they're all mixed up and I don't know how to straighten them up. All I know is that she makes me so happy, that nothing as simple as cookies has ever meant so much to me. I hook my hand behind her head, fingers knotting in her tendrils of crimson hair. "I -" I stop, because the words feel familiar, well-known, a phrase I've heard a thousand times in every movie I've ever seen, the words written in every book I've read, in every song on the radio - and I can't say that, I can't mean it because it's too terrifying. The words tie themselves up and stick on the suddenly dry walls of my throat. "I can't believe you," I tell her, because it's the most true thing I can say without feeling like I want to run away. I really can't believe her sometimes, or at all, really. She's on a different plane and I'm just looking up at her, admiring the view.

I kiss her to shut up my thoughts, to fill my body with the way she tastes and feels and smells instead of all the negative things that plague me when I let logic run its course. I breathe hard through my nose and straddle her waist, hands holding her face on either side. Her tongue penetrates my lips, smooth and soft and tasting faintly of frosting and I just know she took a taste before she brought the cookies out here. I laugh against her lips because it's so her, so Cat, and the fact that I know that, that I understand that as a characteristic of hers kind of amazes me. I know all of these things - the colors of her house, how her family works differently than others but still love each other, the family photos on her walls, the way Cat preferred to be alone when not at school until she met me, and dozens of other things - her favorite color isn't red like most believe, but the shade of black located on the tails of tadpoles, she has every Disney soundtrack ever recorded, if acting or singing doesn't work out for her, she wants to own the kind of doves they release at weddings and funerals because "there's nothing more beautiful than the sound of wings and tears - happy or sad ones."

We almost go all the way. I almost give in. But the same fear that has tugged me back every time since the beginning snags me, and I'm whispering an apology against her lips and telling her I have to go home. She smile and nods, rushing off to put the cookies in a plastic bag so I can take them home. We both eat one at the door before I leave, my backpack saddled on my shoulder. They taste wonderful. Cat wipes the crumbs from the corner of my mouth with her thumb before giving me a light kiss goodbye.

Stepping out into the evening sky, Cat's hand holds me back. I look up at her, the dying sun making her eyes and hair dark.

"It's okay for us to have anniversaries, right?"

I pause, my mouth falling open with no words. A part of me is hesitant - the part where my fear of Trina and everyone else lies - to answer that question because anniversaries are for people who are official, who hold hands in the hallways and kiss on the street. Another wants to shout yes to the sky and celebrate all kinds of anniversaries with her. Just the thought makes my heart swell.

"You look scared." She's frowning, stepping down to join me on the concrete landing of her front porch. "I'm not going to force you to do anything. You know that. I just don't want to scare you away." Her lower lip trembles, her teeth sharply halting the action. "I _really_ don't want you to go away."

My eyes jump between hers. I swallow and give a slow nod. "I am scared, Cat. I'm petrified." My hand shakes in hers. Her eyes widen in worry, stepping closer to me, but I hold up a hand. "Just give me a little more time, okay? I just ..." I hold her hand in both of mine, meeting her sugar sweet eyes. "You make me happy. I like being with you. This is all still so new and confusing and I don't ..." I don't know what to say. I don't even know how to interpret my own feelings, let alone explain them in a way anyone else could possibly understand, even Cat, who is the epitome of things that don't make sense.

"We have loads of time," Cat says, smiling again, checking the street behind me before springing up on her toes and kissing me. It's a short, sweet peck that leaves me anxious for more, licking my lips to savor her.

"Plenty."

And I'm lucky, I know, that Cat has the patience of a saint. But I don't want to make her wait any more than necessary.

I have to figure this out. I have to know where I stand before I fall.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **_Sorry this update was so late, compared to the other ones. College started and I had things to do. Actually, I'm in my Art History class right now, not paying attention, obviously. BUT THIS IS ART SO IT COUNTS~_


	9. Chapter 9

"I like a girl."

Brown eyes blink back at me. The lips press together and the eyebrows knit over the nose, and then the entire head gives a collective nod.

"I can do this."

A thumbs up. A supportive wink. Another nod.

I turn away from the mirror and rip open my bedroom door, almost racing myself down the hallway, like I'm trying to beat my thoughts to the living room. If they catch up with me, I know I'll chicken out and crawl back to my bed and bury myself in my mattress like a groundhog. I'm tired of shielding myself because before all of this happened I always thought of myself as a brave kind of person - you don't sing and dance and act in front of hundreds of people at a time if you aren't - and this is the ultimate test. It has to be done.

Because I like Cat. I want Cat. I need Cat.

I've known that for a long time, but much like I've spent a lot of my alone time in the shadows of my blankets, those thoughts were pressed down, hidden. I didn't want anyone to see them, to have even the slightest hint of their existence. Not even me. Especially me. I thought I could get away with passing this whole thing off as a phase, something I would grow out of, something to blush about when I was older and married and told my husband in secret, and he would get all turned on by it and ask if I would ever think about hooking up with another woman and I would get mad and make him sleep on the couch and -

I had it all planned out, really, when I wasn't with Cat. But after our anniversary, I was with her practically every day. I didn't enjoy much of anything when I wasn't near her. I wasn't pushing her away anymore. The tension that had locked me up whenever we were in view of the public melted away. And she never once pressed me about any of it. She's always been totally content with us when we're alone; the safety of her bedroom, mine, and our laughter vibrating the air, and her lips meeting mine, and our hands speaking with fingertips across the canvases of our bodies. And it wasn't a sudden realization - a struck by lightening, stop-everything-I'm-doing kind of moment. I didn't wake up and see her next to me and become overwhelmed with all of my feelings for her. Like everything between us, it was slow and gradual, and I still suffer under the glares of my sister, and some nights I do find myself pulling the blankets over my head and patting the bones over my chest as if to calm it down. But they're becoming fewer and further between. Cat kisses my panic away.

There was a moment, though, that sticks out. We were at school and Cat was chattering away. I really was listening, at the time, but in hindsight I don't recall what she was going on about. All I know is that, as always, I was captured by how animated she was, how her lips were smiling to the point of splitting her face in half with big, blinding white teeth flashing in and out of view. It was right after lunch and the bell was about to ring - I don't have my next class with her, so we usually just waved and moved on with promises to meet up later. She shut her locker and and smiled at me, bouncing on her toes. "See ya, Tori!" She had said.

And I had smiled back at her and nodded. "See ya." My hand had touched her elbow and the world shrunk around us. Hollywood Arts wasn't there. California, North America, the oceans and continents shrunk away until my entire universe centered around a red sun, and I almost kissed her, right there in the hallway. It was the widening of her pupils that alarmed of what I was doing, where I was, and the galaxies exploded again. I gasped loudly and Cat blinked, confused, but there was a flickering light of something joyful in her eyes. She touched my hand as I tried to say something, anything, but couldn't.

Cat had just nodded and walked away because, to her, it made sense without having to be explained with words. She reads me better than I can write myself.

I all but sprint down my staircase. My thoughts are running after me, hauling down the hallway and trying to sink their dirty, barbed hooks into my back. To drag me away and down, spiked anchors to let me drown. But I can't. I have a perfectly good buoy floating just above me, I just have to find the strength to reach up and grab her and let her bring me back to the surface. I feel like I haven't taken a breath in over a month.

"Mom? Dad?"

Two dark-haired heads turn from the TV to watch me. Trina is on the recliner off to the side, flipping through the glossy pages of a magazine with earphones pushed into her ear. She doesn't see me yet, engrossed in the lives of celebrities she'll never meet. I take a deep breath and throw a thumb toward the kitchen. "Can I talk to you guys on the porch for a second?"

"Oh god you're pregnant." My dad's eyes look like they're about to leap from his skull and melt on the floor. "Was it Andre? Or Robbie? Or that Aladdin looking one? Oh god, honey, I knew we should have had the talk when you were younger -"

"Jeez, Dad, woah!" I hold up my hands to silence him. "I'm not - I am definitely _not_ pregnant. Okay? Mom, make him breathe."

Trina is listening now. One headphone is pinched between her fingers with her magazine half closed. "Tori can't be knocked up. She's messing around with -"

"Okay." I shoot her a hard look. To my surprise, she actually shuts up, leaning back and lifting her magazine, but not taking her eyes off of me. I turn back to my parents - Mom is waving her hand in front of Dad's face, who's touching his chest dramatically. Rolling my eyes, I indicate the porch once more. "The porch? Please?"

Mom nods, giving me a reassuring smile as she takes my father's hand and pulls him out of the living room. Trina drops her magazine. "What about me?"

Mom and Dad move past me. I return my eyes to Trina, who raises her eyebrows. I shake my head and point a finger at her. "You let me take care of this, Trina. This is my battle."

"You're fighting on the wrong side." She sets her teeth, glancing at our parents' backs as they move outside. She stands, moving toward me with the intensity of a lioness. "I'm your sister, Tori, and I love you, okay?" I know she means it. Her eyes shift between mine. "I don't want you to make a mistake here. You're going to destroy your future - _and_ hers."

"You think I haven't thought about that?" I don't want to be weak in front of her. Trina's a self-centered brat, but damn if she isn't stronger and braver than me. She always has been. But this isn't her fight to take on - it's mine, and I've thought all about the consequences and everything that could possibly go wrong between Cat and I. I've thought about my career and hers and what this could do to it.

But the difference is this - I want to be a singer, and I need Cat. Fame isn't a necessity. Cat is.

"I know what I'm doing. Please, for once in your life, think about my happiness. Please."

Trina's eyes waver. She steps back. "I'm thinking about your safety. Do you know what happens to kids our age when they're - they're -"

"Not straight? Yes. I do know. But I have great friends, Trina, who love me and would never let anyone hurt me. And I've got Mom and Dad and you." I touch her arm. She chews her lip, eyes straying from mine and falling between us. "I need you on my side, Treen. Now more than ever."

"Tori?"

I twist backward. Mom is leaning into the kitchen, frowning. "If you don't get out here soon, your Dad is going to have a stroke from imagining things. Now he's convinced you've joined a religious cult."

"Just a second." I turn back to my sister, my hand squeezing her arm. "Okay?"

Trina takes a deep breath that rushes from her nose. "I guess guys _would_ think it was hot that my sister was dating a girl. Can I send pictures -"

"No."

Giving her arm a pat, I turn and move through the kitchen and out on the porch. Dad looks up from his lap. "You're in a gang. You killed someone. You're joining a monastery."

"Dad." I lift a finger and press it to my lips. "You're going to give yourself a heart condition, now relax."

He doesn't, but he stops spewing scenarios at me. The two of them sit on the swinging love seat on one end of the porch and I perch on the edge of the banister on the other side. Talking to Trina delayed the thoughts that had been chasing me, but they're slowing easing up on me again, waiting just outside the glass of the porch door. I take a deep breath. And then another one. I look at my parents - Mom's hand is on Dad's thigh and his arm is on the back of the seat behind her. They've always been affectionate and loving toward each other. I've always admired them because few of my friends' parents are still together. Since I was a kid, I've wanted what they have, someone to love and grow and have a family and a career with. And, yeah, I expected it to be a boy, but it'd be a shame if I missed out on the real thing just because they have different genitalia.

I take another deep breath and close my eyes. "I like a girl."

Not even a beat of silence goes by. "Oh, it's that Valentine girl, isn't it?"

My eyes peel open. Mom is smiling at me. "What?"

"Cat, right? She's always over, or you're with her. You like her, don't you?"

My mouth falls open. I give a short nod. Dad looks a bit more skeptical - his hand is on his chin, eyes narrowed.

"You're only seventeen, Tori. That's - that's a serious thing to claim, you know?"

"I know." I look at the two of them. "I've had a long time to think about it. I really like her. She makes me happy and I don't want to pretend like she's just a friend anymore."

Mom looks at Dad. They look at each other. They're having a silent conversation - they've been married a long time, have been together for even longer than that. They don't have to speak anymore to talk to one another. It's amazing, really, and it makes my heart thump thinking I might have that some day. Maybe it'll be with Cat, maybe it won't, but I don't want to pass up on the chance, either.

Mom finally turns to me. "We love you, Tori. You and your sister are the world to us. You being with Cat doesn't bother us any more than Trina being with ... herself."

Dad snorts. He claps his hand on Mom's knee. "At least I don't have to worry about grandchildren. For now."

I don't feel them until they're on my cheeks, but I'm crying. Mom is the first to flutter toward me, enveloping me in a hug that smells like her cherry blossom perfume. I hug her hard and feel her hand on the back of my head, and then Dad's arms are closing around both of us.

For the first time, I don't feel like my thoughts are chasing me. In fact, it's like they're running in the opposite direction.

_I can do this_, I tell myself, and I squeeze my parents tighter.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** _Realistic coming out? Probably not in most places in the United States, no. But you have to remember that this is Hollywood, USA, and people are much more open minded over there. It should be California everywhere._

_Sorry for the lack of Cat in this chapter; I promise she'll be in the next one. And maybe sexy times? :o_


	10. Chapter 10

When I run into Cat the following morning, I feel like my heart is on fire. It shocks me to no end that people don't stare at her for hours like I want to. She attracts looks, no doubt, but everyone else gazes at her like she's an object to be manipulated. They see her long legs disappearing under a denim skirt and the delicate curve of her collarbones arching across her chest and the full lips and the swell of her chest - and that's all beautiful, trust me, but it's not all I see. I see her laughter and her happy chocolate eyes and her kindness, her patience, her honesty and loyalty and love. She's bursting with it. And that makes her more than the attractive thing that other people see. It makes her a person.

"You're staring at me."

Cat laughs. She touches my elbow very carefully, as platonic as she can make the gesture seem, before quickly pulling it away. It's a practiced movement, one we have done a dozen times before. It's her not being able to refrain from touching me altogether, but keeping it friendly. I open my mouth to protest before zipping my lips shut. My parents know - I told her about the confrontation this morning. She had been so surprised she couldn't stop herself from crushing me in a hug. It was a step, sure, but it had taken over a month to get to that point. I smile back at her, reaching up and tucking a strand of rogue red hair behind her ear. It's an intimate gesture, something we don't do here at school very often. Cat is noticeably wary of reacting; I can see in the way her hands twitch and her eyes grow heavy that she wants to hold me closer, kiss me, but we're in the middle of the hallway. My fingertips ski down her jawline.

"You're beautiful."

Cat's cheeks burn. She ducks her head slightly before looking up at me through the gaps in her thick lashes. "Thank you."

I want to kiss her. I want to hold her cheeks and kiss her in front of all the mumbling students passing through. But I hold back, bite my tongue, swallow the urge away. I can't plunge into this without knowing how to swim. It's going to take time and I have to allow myself that to adjust or everything will fall apart.

I've accepted that I might not be straight. As far as being a lesbian - I don't think so. I'm attracted to guys. I'm attracted to Cat. Maybe I'm attracted to all kinds of people. Who knows. What matters is where my feelings lie and who manifests them and in this case, it's Cat. That's important. Not the rest of it. Not the labels or the identification or what other people might say when they see Cat and I together. We're Cat and Tori. Simply.

After school, I drive the two of us to Cat's house. Like usual, it's empty, but there's evidence that someone other than Cat has been here. An empty pan with cookie crumbs on it is balancing on the kitchen counter, empty coffee cups, a box of brunette hair dye in the trash. It's weird that I even notice, even weirder that Cat tells me her and her mom spent the day together the day before without me having to ask.

"I told her about you," Cat says, words carefully constructed like she had considered them for a long time. She throws in some pizza rolls into the microwave before turning to face me, back against the counter. "That we're, uhm, secret dating."

"Secret dating," I repeat, smiling at her. I sit at her kitchen table. "We sound like spies."

Cat beams, hands folding in front of her. "She said she can't wait to meet you. And I can't wait for you to meet her. It'll be so special. Maybe you can have dinner with us one night, maybe even with my brother, and, oh! On Christmas my Gran comes up and you'll get to meet her, too! And my cousins and aunts and uncles, they'll be so delighted because they love singing and Hollywood and we could show them around and sing for them and -" Cat chops her words off at the sound of the microwave blaring. She whirls around, tentatively withdrawing the hot plate and standing there for a moment, facing the appliance.

I study the back of her yellow tank-top. "You all right?"

Cat turns. Her eyes are worried. "Was that too much?"

I'm confused. "Was what too much?"

"Me talking about you meeting my family." She drops the plate between us and stands at my side. Her hand grips mine. "I don't want to scare you away."

"Cat." I put my other hand over hers. "You're not going to scare me away. I can't wait to meet your family."

"As my girlfriend?" She bites her lips. The words were squeaked more than spoken. There's a jittyness to her knees that suggests she's resisting the urge to bounce. I squeeze her hand.

"Yes. As your girlfriend."

Cat takes a deep breath, almost a gasp, like she can't believe it. Her arms swing around my neck, drawing me straight to her chest and furiously kissing the top of my head. I laugh into her shirt. The fact that this makes her so happy makes me happy, too. It makes all of my insecurities seem so stupid, so far away. What do I care if other people look down their noses at me? At us? I make Cat happy. Cat makes me happy. She makes me want to be a better, more confident person. And if people don't like it, don't like us, then those aren't people I want liking me anyway.

She bends down and kisses me. I tangle my hand into the back of her hair. The room smells like pizza rolls. Her tongue teases my lips, the breath of a suppressed giggle fanning over my mouth. Cat's leg swings over my lap and she nestles on top of me and - oh - heat licks across my waist, up my chest, into my neck. Her tongue meets mine, battles, wins, and a soft moan ripples through me as her hands glide over my breasts.

We've been so slow, so careful, but holding back too much for too long. I wrap my fingers around her wrist and pull back, meeting her eyes.

She blinks at me. Her face is flushed. I swallow before nodding.

"Really?" Cat licks her lips. She bounces slightly, her hips pushing into mine, and I bite back another moan as I nod once more.

She twists her hand to take mine. We leave the pizza rolls steaming on the table. She's bounding up the stairs with me behind her like I'll change my mind. Cat has been imagining this for a lot longer than I have and I can't bring myself to force her to wait any longer.

Besides, I want this as much as her.

I don't even think it's a desire at this point. It's a necessity. I need her like I need music, thrumming inside of me, keeping time, stealing my breath.

She shuts her door but doesn't bother to lock it. I hold her hand until I move to the edge of the bed, sitting gingerly on the edge. Cat remains standing. She's smiling at me, blushing, nervous, maybe scared? I swallow as she plucks at the hem of her shirt before slowly, achingly so, she pulls it over her head. Red hair bleeds down her shoulders. My fingers twitch at the sight of her purple bra. Her hands slowly shift to her skirt, already revealing so much but safeguarding parts I've never seen. The button pops. The zipper clicks down. Her hips wiggle once, and they drop to her ankles. She steps out of it, panties the same purple as her bra, and I'm ripping off my shirt before I even realize it and standing up, crashing our bodies together. A small squeak proceeds the kiss, my hands flattening over her bare hips and pushing them into mine. I can feel her breasts against my own, the hot pads of her palms gliding down my back, over the clasp of my bra. She travels down to the dip of my lower back, making her way back toward my front, snapping the button of my jeans. I gasp against her mouth, my hands momentarily abandoning her to tear at the zipper of my pants. I push them down before kicking them off altogether.

Cat's wide brown eyes swallow me. I stand there for a long time, just allowing her to look, taking the time to study the intricate make-up of her body. She's so white she glows, stomach soft, breasts rising and falling with her rapid breathing. I meet her gaze, smiling nervously. She steps forward, hands shaking on my waist as her lips move to my ear. "It's okay."

We sink to the bed, her on top of me, hand behind my back. My bra gives way without a sound, the material tugged away. I thought I'd be self conscious at this point but all worries are wiped clean when I see the way she's looking at me, completely mesmerized. Her thumb slides over one of my nipples, drawing a sound out of me I didn't know I could make. I arch toward her touch as she tests the other nipple with a fingernail.

"You're so beautiful," she whispers, leaning down to kiss my sternum, hot breath searing across my flesh. She tickles each breast with her tongue and I'm on fire, I'm going to burn to death, I convince myself, as she kisses along my stomach, hands on my thighs. She does this for some time, touching parts of me, kissing every inch she can reach. It makes me squirm, and pant, and die, over and over again, until finally her hand cups between my legs and I nearly scream.

Cat stops wasting time. She guides my panties down my legs and throws them to the floor. This, too, causes her to pause in awe, softly, _barely_ touching me. I lift my hips, desperate, feeling like I'm about to cave in. Her fingers slip between my lips and sink into a pool of wetness. She gasps. I gasp, and twist, and cry out again as her finger curls deep inside of me.

It doesn't take long at all. Her thumb massages my clit as the lone finger works within. I don't try to stop the string of cries coming out of me - I don't really hear them, I just feel Cat pumping and see stars hovering on the edges of my vision. This is nothing like doing this by myself in my bed in the dark; the sun is slanting in through Cat's windows, warm and inviting, and I come with her name flooding out of me, thighs squeezing around her wrist.

She lays beside me. I breathe, or try to, but it doesn't work very well for a few minutes. Her arm drapes over my stomach, lips on my shoulder, as I slowly come down. The ceiling swims back into view, and then Cat's face as I turn to look at her. She's beaming, tongue on her upper lip.

I kiss her. Fueled by my fire, I roll on top of her, kissing, touching, roaming. I pluck her bra off from beneath her back. She throws it off. I only stare down at her supple softness for a few moments before I'm down on top of them, flicking my tongue across the tip of her taut nipple. She moans, the sound better than any song I've ever heard, and I make her play it again and again as I map across her body, discovering soft spots (on her sides) and ticklish ones (behind her knees) and ones that make her sing (her neck and thighs and the space just above her panties). Those are the last to go, leaving her naked and bare. She's soft and wet with a tuft of dark hair that blends between my fingers. She's shifting beneath me wildly, begging, and Jesus, I can't. The tip of my middle finger glides between her lips before finding her clit, stroking it with terrible slowness. Cat is gripping one breast, back lifting off the bed as I flick across the sensitive nub.

And then I'm inside of her and she's hot and wet and tensing around me like she's a bowline about to snap. I pump my hand like she did, thumb on her clit, turning my eyes up to watch as her face squeezes into expressions I didn't know humans could create. Her ribcage expands and deflates with alarming speed. I'm half thinking she might hyperventilate when suddenly there's a rush of "_Tori_" gushing out of her, and she's shaking beneath my hand. She rides out her orgasm with my finger still stroking within her, not stopping until I think she'll simply fall apart if I don't. I pull back, panting, exhausted just watching her as she blinks blearily up at the ceiling.

I crawl beside her. She looks dazed and deliriously happy, so much so that all I can do is kiss her temple and draw her naked body to mine.

I think she tells me she loves me, but the words are so quiet I can't hear them well. And that should scare me to death, hearing her say that, but it doesn't. I dip my nose into her hair and mumble, "I love you, too."

Because I do. My heart says it too loud for me to pretend I don't hear it.

Cat smiles against my chest before leaning back and kissing me.

And it's easy, this. Cat. Us. I made it hard, but it doesn't have to be. Not everything has to be questions. It can all be answers.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:** _Jeez, sorry this took so long. I was doing a hundred other things._

_But yeah, this is the final installment of Question Marks. Everything needs to go out with a bang, eh?_

_I'm thinking of writing a sequel calling Exclamation Marks (oh ho!) but I'm not sure yet._

_Hope you all enjoyed the story!_


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